Media in the New Millennium

posted by Doyle

A gym here in Denver got a pretty good beat-down on Yelp recently. The problem? Posts that were pretty clearly fakes (I have to do say I don’t know for sure if they were or not). The Yelp community took some pretty strong offense. The biggest tip? The business got their first review of any kind and within just a couple of days had a number of five-star, “this is the best gym EVER” reviews. (I’d link, but the site has been cleaned up, and there’s just a couple of reviews out there — the accusatory comments are gone.)

If they weren’t fake, they sure looked it.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with asking your customers to review your business on sites like Yelp, and there’s nothing wrong with noting positive reviews on your blog, or sending them to followers via Twitter, etc. However, if the comments were indeed fake, the very best thing you can hope for us to be ignored. Worst case, you’ll be outed and ridiculed in front of the very audience you were hoping to impress.

Some suggestions:

1. Feel free to ask for reviews, but accept them warts and all. If you get a negative review, it’s OK to apologize, ask the person back (with some kind of offer) or correct things that are factual errors. It’s not OK to argue, no matter how painful the feedback might be.
2. Understand that you might get reviewed without asking to be — that’s the purpose of these kinds of sites. If you’re not checking on what people are saying about you online regularly, you’re asking for trouble.
3. If you get a piece of feedback you act upon, note it. If someone takes the time to give you a great piece of constructive criticism that you act upon, let people know you’re listening.
4. If there’s something you can’t change, but would like to explain, by all means do so. When Southwest Airlines gets complaints about scheduling issues on their blog, it’s not uncommon for the person in charge of scheduling to explain. Sometimes the answer is “sorry, but this is something we had to do.” If your customers understand why something is the way it is, they may be more willing to accept it. When I worked for Coors, customers would sometimes be furious that we weren’t offering a coupon in their market — until we told them it was illegal for us to do so in their state. Talk to your customers, they want a dialog.
5. If you end up with someone that’s posting mean, vile, inaccurate things, the community will often take care of that. If not, you can check with the site, as Terms of Service will often not allow off-topic, profane rants. Remember that a bad review is typically not grounds for a complaint, but slanderous, malicious or threatening posts can be. In some cases, the poster just wants to be heard. Someone once posted on Twitter that they wanted one of our clients to “die, die, die, die, die!” Two hours later, that person did a blog post about how well the problem was handled. Bottom line: don’t overreact.

posted by Doyle

I had the opportunity to discuss companies that use Twitter with Jessica Levco, a writer for Ragan.com. The resulting article has many great examples of companies using microblogging to reach customers. I’ve pasted the article below. Enjoy!

Making Twitter work for your company

By Jessica Levco
How to reach new and current customers—140 characters at a time

Twitter, definition No. 8: A state of tremulous excitement.

The mini-blogging Web site Twitter has certainly created that in the social media community, and businesses are now considering the practical applications—and guidelines—of “tweeting.”

Here’s what you need to know: In 2006, Twitter was established as a free site that lets viewers post and read updates about friends and family. Writing in 140 character blasts called tweets, people communicate with one another, sometimes as simply as: “I just ate an apple.”

Why would Fortune 500 companies want to join the Twitter dialogue?

By reaching out to thousands each day, companies can offer discounts, coupons, updates and customer service. Social media experts say tweeting can generate excitement and, ultimately, business traffic. It can also let them know what’s going on in the industry—who’s left one employer for another, or what firm might be planning layoffs, for example.

When companies first hear about Twitter, though, they can be skeptical.

Christine Major, an account supervisor at PerkettPR, said when she introduced clients to Twitter, they asked: “Why bother? That seems silly.”

Major said Twitter is all about building relationships.

“It’s a good way to get conversations going with potential customers,” Major said. “It’s a tool that can humanize the company; it gives people a real look as to who is working there.” 

Josh Rosenberg, Senior Vice President/Director of FirstWord Digital, said Twitter can help foment a meaningful relationship between a brand and a consumer, if “the brand is committed to fueling the conversation over time in a way that is transparent and genuine.”

Companies can establish Twitter feeds for different reasons. H&R Block’s Twitter feed will be useful in April when people have questions (or gripes) about taxes. Spud Brothers, a restaurant in Colorado, advertises special discounts for Twitter users. Southwest Airlines updates customers with weather conditions and airline discounts.

Twitter feeds can be monitored by one or more people. Experts agree that giving the feed a human face is critical. (Take a look Comcast’s Frank Eliason athttp://twitter.com/comcastcares). Managing a Twitter feed doesn’t have to be a full-time job, and companies need not respond to every tweet. And Twitter requires a commitment from the company’s team, whether it’s from the IT staff or marketing team.

(Learn how GM uses Twitter to communicate and build relationships with its customers and the public.)

Giving up control of the conversation is the biggest struggle companies deal with, said Doyle Albee, director of new media practices at Metzger Associates in Colorado. He said controlling a Twitter conversation—or any type of conversation—is an illusion. 

“There’s always a conversation going on, and sometimes it’s in a living room, within four walls,” Albee said, “but with Twitter, you can join the conversation, listen and enhance.”

He said when a company first joins Twitter; they should behave as if showing up at a cocktail party: “Be a little quiet, absorb and talk to some people.” Etiquette is crucial—companies don’t want to be “that” guy. “If three people are having a conversation about food, you wouldn’t run up to them and start shouting about your new car,” Albee said. “Your Twitter feeds shouldn’t read: Here’s our new product! Click here!”

Opportunity knocks

What happens if somebody is complaining about your company? Doyle said that if you reach out, you can turn that complaint into a compliment.

Doyle shares this example of how EMBARQ, a communications company, handles a complaint on Twitter: 

Customer: I am sick of Embarq playing with my DNS requests. Opting out weekly is not a successful opt-out solution. Is it even legal?

EMBARQ response: Sorry to hear you are not happy with your Embarq service. Can I help? Send me a DM with details, and I’ll see what I can do.

Seems simple, but a direct response can work wonders, Doyle said. It’s important for companies to address the problem and thank the customer for pointing it out. Companies can monitor what is being said about them by signing up for at scoop.com, tweetscan.com, TweetBeep e-mail alerts or manual searches at http://search.twitter.com. 

Even if companies don’t have a Tweeter feed, that might not stop individual employees from starting their own. Companies should remind employees not to dish out trade secrets and financial information, said Bryan Person, the social media director at LiveWorld in Texas. Treat employees like adults, but let them know the consequences of tasteless tweets. A personal/work life on Twitter can co-exist, but tell employees to be careful if they start talking about their job, Pearson advised.

“With a Twitter feed, almost anybody can be the de-facto spokesperson for the company,” Pearson said. “You never know when somebody could ask an employee about a company product. And you don’t want your employee to be blindsided by questions.”

posted by Doyle

Clay Evans, a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera, hit the nail on the head today with this column. 

He showed me exactly why newspapers are dying.

To be clear, I disagree with the overall message of Evans’ column, but I’m not one of these cheering the end of the mainstream media. In fact, I’m mourning this demise. I believe in the Fourth Estate and am of the opinion the press plays a vital role. As Thomas Jefferson said in a letter to George Washington in 1792, “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

What Evans doesn’t get is that “the press” is not the giant thing that the Daily Camera just outsourced to the Denver Newspaper Agency — the thing that puts ink on paper. The press watches and reports, and the end product can be on paper, on a computer screen or on a cell phone. Clear thoughts can be expressed in 140 characters or 2,000 words — and as Evans should know, shorter is often far more difficult.

The sad arrogance of Evans’ piece is that he infers that writing by anyone that doesn’t receive a paycheck for writing isn’t worth reading. Clearly, only those anointed with official positions can be considered trustworthy. Even worse, from the tone of his piece, I think Evans is inferring the rest of us just aren’t bright enough to be expressing thoughts outside of carefully reviewed letters to the editor. To read his piece, you’d think anyone with a blog has Paris Hilton’s vocabulary and Britney Spears’ spelling skills.

What should be happening is that reporting should be moving to a different medium while the tenants and professionalism remain. The New York Times has more readers now than at any time in their history, thanks to the Internet. Does the business model need to change? Of course. But the answer is not to discount the online world. That’s like saying those new-fangled auto-mo-beels will never catch on — just give me my horse.

Like anything, social media has both good and bad. Let’s look at newspapers through the same lens. For every New York Times, there’s at least one National Enquirer (sorry, no link to those guys even if they have one!). For every radio program like This American Life there’s a handful of juvenile morning shows offering concert tickets to anyone who will come to the studio and test adult diapers on the air. And for every thoughtful blog that is either expressing well-reasoned opinions or doing solid reporting, there are a bunch that are simply drivel. And, I’ve said many times, there are millions of blogs out there with one entry: “Hi, welcome to my blog. Check back here for frequent updates.” Then silence. 

From this column, it sure seems Evans has never taken any time to discover the myriad of voices — good and not so good — online. Perhaps he missed that little story about how bloggers accused Dan Rather using potentially false documents when covering Bush’s National Guard service, an issue that ended up costing him (right or wrong) his long-time position as the anchor of the CBS Evening News. Maybe he’s not familiar with some of the excellent technology reporting being done on blogs by journalists like Om Malik or Dan Gillmore. Clearly, since they’re not working for a daily paper in Boulder, Colorado, they must not be relevant. (And, for the record, Clay, Malik has raised millions to expand his online publications. Last time I checked, the Daily Camera building was on the block, as was the entire Rocky Mountain News.)

I usually find Evans thoughtful, even when I disagree with him. This piece sounded more like it was written by someone on a manual typewriter declaring “that Internet thing” to be just a fad. But if this is how newspaper reporters are thinking about social media and the inevitable move to online information distribution, perhaps the fall of the newspaper is coming sooner than any of expected.

C’mon, Clay. You can do better than that.

Twiiter. Pretty interesting.

posted by Doyle

posted by Doyle

I got an email today from a reporter I work with at a national publication — what many would call mainstream media — with links to two articles she had written. It wasn’t that I was in them, or helped with them, or that they included one of my clients. She was just letting me know about articles she had written on social media that she thought I would find interesting. She was right, by the way.

The email wasn’t a personal note, but one sent to a list (undisclosed, so I don’t know how many). I find it interesting that reporters with major, national, mainstream publications are now proactively sharing their work with contacts — another example of personal branding.

My, how the media is changing.

posted by Doyle

One of the most common questions I get regarding Twitter is, “should I follow everyone who follows me?” Here’s what I do:

1. If the person seems to be running in the same circle as me (knows/follows many of the same people, etc.) I follow back.

2. If the person is writing about things I’m generally interested in, like socmed, PR or marketing issues, I generally follow them back.

3. If there’s just not a connection, sometimes I don’t. That has little to do with being offended, per se, and more to do with what I’m personally looking to get out of my time on Twitter. Not a hard and fast rule, but overall, I think it’s OK not to follow absolutely everyone that follows you. (Aside: if you have thousands of followers and follow just a handful, that doesn’t sit well with some Twitter users.)

4. If the person is clearly a spammer, I take the time to block. Twitter notices users who get blocked too often and will take action. In many cases, these folks have the same goofy Twitter nomenclature as email spammers and their names tend to just look a little “off.” Twitter founder Biz Stone said at the Aloha Media Summit earlier this year that spam was one of his biggest issues and his staff is working hard to see it doesn’t become a large problem. I say support them with a block if warranted.

5. Conversely, I seldom block anyone just because I disagree with them. It’s OK not to follow. Save the blocking, however, for behavior that is detrimental to the overall experience, like spam. Of course, it’s also appropriate to use in cases of attention that is inappropriate. A friend told me of a former boyfriend that was using Twitter to stalk her. In cases like this, of course, a block is completely appropriate. 

These basic guidelines work for me. Comment with any additional input you might have.

posted by Doyle

I decided I needed (OK, maybe not needed, but certainly could use… OK, I just wanted) the new 120GB iPod, so I put my 80GB iPod on Craig’s List. The first email I got was from a “doctor” in Boulder who was in vacation in Hawaii, but wanted to pay me via PayPal and have me send it to his “woman” in Africa. 

Yeah, right. Maybe he’ll trade me for my beautiful seafront property in Nebraska.

Then I got this email from Ro Ju (I’ll put his email address here – r.ju05@yahoo.com — so all the other spammers will find it and he’ll at least have to register for a new Yahoo account!). It said:

Hi is it still available,if yes,do you accept paypal?

I decided to have some fun with this one, so I responded that I would be happy to take PayPal. I didn’t ask him why, but he felt compelled to explain his situation to me. The next email said:

Thanks for your reply, i am a very busy man thats why, can you ship to Africa for me to my lovely wife who is on a missionary trip there for our church with my son and i pay you with paypal since it secures both buyer and seller, and you can confirm payment from your account before you ship? is it possible?i will pay you for all extra charges and also for shipment to make sure you get your exact amount for the sale.

Hope to read from you soon.

Anyone else notice that he never asked the condition, what it came with, etc.? You know, all the stuff that someone that really wanted to buy an iPod would ask? I responded that I’d be happy to help out, but I’d need to increase the price to $400, and I estimated shipping would be $200. I asked if that would be OK. The response:

so kindly send me a PayPal money request or just give me your PayPal email address so i can pay immediately

So now Ro “Savvy Internet Shopper” Ju is happy to pay me $600 for a used 80GB iPod when he could buy a new 120GB from Apple for $249. Gosh, I must be an amazing salesman.

As an aside, is there a “how to be an idiot Internet scam artist” Web site out there that advises everyone to note your beautiful wife is doing missionary work? Seriously.

So, this is kind of fun. I wondered how far I could take this and sent the following response:

OK, but I’m so concerned for and moved by your family doing God’s work in Africa, let me make this offer: I’ll fly personally to Africa and deliver the iPod to your lovely wife. I’ve priced tickets, and I’ll need to invoice you via PayPal for $3,264.27 (airfare to Africa and hotel ) plus the $400 for the iPod and I’m requesting a $500/day per diem to enjoy the continent while I’m delivering this iPod to your wife.

I’ll document the entire trip via photo and video and post it to my blog so the world can see how much you care for your lovely wife and how much she will be enjoying her new iPod.
 

Let me know if this is acceptable to you. Happy to help out with your busy schedule!

posted by Doyle

For those of you who read my rants here or follow me on Twitter, you know I’m not a big United Airlines fan.

AT&T may have topped them in the last 24 hours.

The saga begins when I made the mistake of trying to buy a 3G card for my MacBook Pro. Seems simple. Bought it, found the software for a Mac (PC software comes pre-loaded on the device… isn’t AT&T the exclusive provider of the APPLE iPhone?). Anyway…

Bottom line: it won’t work on the Mac. AT&T Customer Service tells me to take my laptop back to the AT&T Store. They try another card. Nope. They tell me “none of us really know much about Macs.” Um, thanks. (Again, APPLE iPhone. Hello?) They let me call Customer Service from a counter at the back of the store. 10 minutes later, I’m cut off while being transferred. Great. To their credit, they call me back. Another 10 minutes on hold. Finally give up.

Now it gets good. I’ve included a few classic quotes from AT&T folks in the story below, and yes, they’re QUOTES!

I call tech support from my office. I’m put through all the things I’ve already tried — like rebooting! Wow! Wouldn’t have thought of that on my own. Thanks! — and am finally told, “This software really isn’t our product, so I don’t know what to tell you.”

That’s funny, I could have SWORN I paid AT&T for this card. If you choose to use third-party software to support it rather than developing your own, OK, but that doesn’t absolve you of responsibility to your customers.

Then AT&T offers to transfer me to Apple. I’m thinking, wow, they’ve got a line to Apple. That’s great. Now we’ll get somewhere — AT&T must have an agreement with Apple to support issues like this.

Um, no.

What they did was just transfer to Apple’s Customer Service Line. Seriously! Yes, my MacBook Pro is past the date for live support. I knew that. Apple knows that. So, the Apple guy and I had a brief chat about what a tool the AT&T person was, and ended up having a good laugh.

But I didn’t think this was very funny.

Then a friend found a string on Apple’s support page that said, essentially, same problem, no one could help, so he took the card back.

Finally, some advice I can agree with!

So, I took it back. Can I return it? Sure, no problem… AS LONG AS I PAY A $20 RE-STOCKING FEE.

Oh, hell no. You don’t want to see the scene I’m prepared to make in front of all your festive holiday shoppers, pal.

To Jeff’s credit at the AT&T Store at 29th Street in Boulder, he managed to override that. But, let’s take a minute and think about what AT&T asked poor Jeff to do with a straight face:

• Confirm to a customer that, yes, we sold you that and, no, they really don’t work with Macs.
• Understand that I told the guy who sold it to me that I was using it with a Mac, but he didn’t know it didn’t work with Macs.
• Realize that he is asked to tell people all the time that “you’ve got 30 days to bring it back if you don’t like it” when in his heart, he knows they’ll get cracked $20 if they actually do bring it back.
• Finally, tell me that AT&T was going to thank me personally for wasting a couple of hours of my life by charging me $20.

Poor Jeff. Seriously. He knew it was complete bullshit.

Why doesn’t AT&T management know it’s bullshit? They do. That’s why Jeff had a back door to override it. They just plan on a bunch of members of the herd to raise less hell than I was willing to raise. Pretty crappy way to treat your livelihood if you ask me.

So, as Sarah Silverman would say, “What did we learn today?” I learned:

• Despite the fact that they are the exclusive carrier of Apple’s iPhone, they don’t know crap about Macs and were almost irritated by the fact I had one. (Another great AT&T quote: “Not that many people use Macs.” Bet Steve Jobs would love to hear you say that!)
• Rather than just charge what they need to in order to be profitable, AT&T will gouge you at every turn.
• AT&T must hate it’s employees. Why? Because to a person today, everyone I spoke to seemed to really want to help, but AT&T didn’t give them either the tools, the training or the authority to help me out. That’s not the employees’ fault… it’s AT&T’s fault. Shame on them. What a crappy place to work.

And Steve Jobs? Shame on you, too. My customer experience with Apple is first-class, without exception. Let carriers compete with service to carry your phone. Don’t lock in to what I can only believe was a nice payout to Apple at the expense of those of us who really, really like your hardware.

So I’m back on my Sprint card, and I’m pretty happy. Just wondering who to send the invoice for a few hours of my time to at AT&T…

A Facebook friend asked why Twitter makes sense, or if it does make sense. While I love Twitter, I’m also the first one to admit that it can be weak, but it can can also be a great social media tool. Here are my (edited) thoughts I posted on my friend’s page:

I’m the first one to admit that Twitter can be shallow: I’m eating cake, I’m combing my hair, etc. But, Twitter can be oh so cool. Think about these potential tweets:

1. Here’s a great article. Some of my favorite followees do not much more than send great, great articles to read. I favorite them and get back to them that evening.

2. Here’s a funny thought. I love people that express the frustrations of daily life in a funny way. So do many people on Twitter.

3. Here’s my latest blog post. I love the people that queue me up to their latest. Not necessarily every post, but the ones they like the best.

4. Re-Tweets. Send me great thoughts from people you follow. They’re always welcome.

There’s more, but those are thought-starters. Don’t view Twitter as simple “what are you doing,” but more as “what are you thinking.” That’s probably more interesting.

Go forth, everyone, and Tweet away!

Nice video from Perry Belcher. Are you a Twitter snob? Don’t be.